Sunburn: A Novel(50)

The new place is, by almost anyone’s standards, nicer than the one above the Ben Franklin. Modern appliances, one and a half baths. And most people would probably like the wooded backyard, the privacy it provides. But Polly misses the light that filled her second-floor apartment, the high ceilings and almost empty rooms. Even if most of the things in the new place belong to the landlord—the same landlord she had before, giving her a break; he feels terrible about the explosion, Cath’s death—they weigh her down. In the Royal Farms, there is nothing to clean, nothing to cook, not even a cup to rinse after she has finished her coffee. She leaves the newspaper behind for whoever sits down next. The News-Journal doesn’t really mean anything to her, she might as well be reading a paper in a foreign language. The towns, the counties, the elected officials—she doesn’t recognize a one. The only thing she knows about Delaware is Belleville and the only time Belleville was in the News-Journal was when Polly’s apartment blew up and Cath died.

They mentioned her, of course. But no one cared. It was an accident, after all—that beautiful old stove, she thinks with a pang. There was even a little backfire of gossip that maybe it was Cath who started the fire but didn’t realize how much gas had built up from the leaking stove. It makes as much sense as anything, Polly supposes, but she keeps a polite silence when Max and Ernest try to bait that hook. Best not to speak ill of the dead.

But maybe those rumors are sturdy enough to travel on their own, because here’s Cath’s brother-in-law, Trooper Jim, waiting in his official car when Polly leaves the Royal Farms just before sunrise.

“May I speak to you?” he asks.

“I need to get home.” Adam doesn’t like waking up alone. It’s really quite endearing.

“It won’t take a minute.” He leans over, pushes open the passenger-side door. She climbs in, but she doesn’t close the door. She doesn’t like being in confined spaces with people she can’t trust, male or female. Her body is angled so she can move quickly if he tries to grab her.

“You can close the door.”

“I know.”

He takes her measure, sees she won’t be bullied, lets it go.

“So I’ve been talking to an arson expert. Guy who testifies in trials. He says there’s a scenario where it would make sense if someone made that explosion look like an accident in order to cover up a murder.”

She says nothing. Ditmars told her a long time ago never to talk to anyone, about anything.

“If there was a fire and the gas was on—yes, it could go like that, kaboom. And if Cath lit a cigarette, maybe, assuming the gas had been leaking for a while. But the scene is consistent with what would happen if a small fire started in another room. Say, from a candle.”

Or a scarf, slipping and falling on the bare bulb of a bedside lamp.

Never tell anyone anything, Ditmars whispers in her ear. She never thought she’d be happy to hear his voice in her head. His voice is forever trapped in her head, but it’s usually taunting, not helping.

“But if the stove had been leaking for a while, you would have smelled it, right? You said you left to take a walk, then went to your boyfriend’s motel room.”

“I often take walks at night.” Nothing specific, nothing that can be contradicted.

“But, you know, cigarette fiend that Cath is, she’s pretty polite. She never would have smoked in someone else’s home.”

“She lit up a cigarette in my kitchen the first time she came by, even though I asked her not to. And she used the burner.”

“Yes, the first time she came by. So how many times was it that she dropped in to see you? Remember, I’m the one she asked to check you out, so don’t try to sell me on the friend thing.”

Her fault. She has said too much. That doesn’t mean she has to keep talking. Ditmars taught her that, too. You can shut up anytime. The sooner, the better. If she didn’t scream or cry, the things he did to her, they didn’t last as long.

“Anyway, it could be arson,” Trooper Jim continues. “The investigation isn’t necessarily closed. Just so you know. A murder case never goes away. Who knows what kind of technology they’ll have in five, ten years? Cath’s death has completely fucked up my in-laws. Finding who’s to blame may be the only thing that will help them.”

“Closure,” she says.

Polly thinks about an investigation that had haunted Ditmars, if only briefly. An accident on Christmas Day, in what would be the last full year of their life together. A family that had yearned for an old-fashioned Christmas had been foolish enough to use candles on the tree. But it was a gas leak that made the fire fatal, a fireball shooting up into the sky over Woodlawn. Walking through the wreckage where an entire family had died, Ditmars had a vision. He wanted, briefly, to be a better person. He swore he was going to change, made a resolution to stop drinking.

Three days into the new year, he beat her with a belt, then wrapped it around her neck during sex. Six weeks after that, there was a fire strangely similar to the Christmas Day one, only in the city.

“So you know about my first husband?”

“Some.”

“Do you know everything?”

“He’s dead. Why are we talking about him?”

Polly studies the sun as it rises—there’s a stripe of orange red, a low simmer on the horizon, then a perfect round lozenge suddenly popping up. She has never known sunrises and sunsets like they have in Belleville. The flat, open landscape gives the light so much room to spread.